Since the advent of computers, software developers have strived to provide helpful contextual information to users of a variety of software applications. For example, software applications have been developed for recognizing that a user has entered a name in an electronic document and for providing helpful actions on the identified name. As users operate or have access to a number of different software applications, for example, word processors, spreadsheet applications, electronic mail and messaging applications, and the like, a variety of person-centric data is often maintained in association with a given user or name. For example, a contacts database may have a person's name, address, telephone number, email address, etc. When a user operates in an online session via a distributed computing network, an electronic mail server may be aware of the user's free/busy information in association with the user's electronic calendaring data. A messaging application may be aware of whether the user is currently online/offline, on the telephone, away from her computer, busy, etc. Other applications may keep track of other data such as a person's office number and personnel information, or the name and telephone number of the person's manager or employee. Unfortunately, prior systems do not allow users efficient and friendly access, if any, to the available person-centric data from a variety of data sources, such as those described above.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and system for aggregating person-centric data from a variety of different data sources and for providing that data via a unified user interface upon the identification of a given person's name in an electronic document or page. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.